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Stick

After serving time for armed robbery, Ernest "Stick" Stickley is back on the outside and trying to stay legit. But it's tough staying straight in a crooked town - and Miami is a pirate's paradise, where investment fat cats and lowlife drug dealers hold hands and dance. And when a crazed player chooses Stick at random to die for another man's sins, the struggling ex-con is left with no choice but to dive right back into the game. Besides, Stick knows a good thing when he sees it....

Freaky Deaky

He used to be on the bomb squad, but it's not until he transfers out that Chris Mankowski really begins juggling with dynamite. Rape and revenge are just the tip of the iceberg in a twisty tale that brings Detroit's denizens to life - and occasional death - in all their seedy glory. Electrifying, explosive, and unexpected, this is Elmore Leonard at his suspenseful best.

Mr. Majestyk

Vincent Majestyk saw too much death in the jungles of Southeast Asia. All he wants to do now is farm his melons and forget. But peace can be an elusive commodity, even in the Arizona hinterlands - and especially when the local mob is calling all the shots. And one quiet, proud man's refusal to be strong-armed by a powerful hood is about to start a violent chain reaction that will leave Mr. Majestyk ruined, in shackles, and without a friend in the world -- except for one tough and beautiful woman.

City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit

Clement Mansell knows how easy it is to get away with murder. The seriously crazed killer is already back on the Detroit streets - thanks to some nifty courtroom moves by his crafty looker of a lawyer - and he's feeling invincible enough to execute a crooked Motown judge on a whim. Homicide Detective Raymond Cruz thinks the "Oklahoma Wildman" crossed the line long before this latest outrage, and he's determined to see that the hayseed psycho does not slip through the legal system's loopholes a second time.

Pronto

The feds want Miami bookmaker Harry Arno to squeal on his wiseguy boss. So they're putting word out on the street that Arno's skimming profits from "Jimmy Cap" Capotorto - which he is, but everybody does it. He was planning to retire to Italy someday anyway, so Harry figures now's a good time to get lost. U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens knows Harry's tricky - the bookie ditched him once in an airport while in the marshal's custody - but not careful.

Bandits

Working at his brother-in-law's New Orleans funeral home isn't reformed jewel thief Jack Delaney's idea of excitement - until he's dispatched to a leper's hospital to pick up a corpse that turns out to be very much alive ... and under the care of a beautiful, radical ex-nun in designer jeans. The "deceased" is the one-time squeeze of a Nicaraguan colonel who's ordered her dead for trying to "infect" him, and Sister Lucy's looking to spirit the young woman away from his guns and goons.

Maximum Bob

A character so outrageous he could only have come from the ingenious imagination of Elmore Leonard, lewd, lecherous, law-bending Florida jurist Judge Robert "Maximum Bob" Gibbs has been judged guilty by a grudge-bearing malefactor and sentenced to death - by alligator, if necessary.

Cat Chaser

The hero of Cat Chaser, George Moran, isn't looking for trouble but finds it anyway when he winds up in bed with the wife of a drug-dealing mob-connected Dominican cop - vicious, macho and ready to follow George to the ends of the earth, which in this case means Miami.

Out of Sight: A Novel

World-class gentleman felon Jack Foley is busting out of Florida's Glades Prison when he runs head on into a shotgun-wielding Karen Sisco. Suddenly he's sharing a cramped car trunk with the classy, disarmed federal marshal and the chemistry is working overtime - and as soon as she escapes, he's already missing her. But there are bad men and a major score waiting for Jack in Motown. And the next time his path crosses Karen's, chances are she's going to be there for business, not pleasure.

The Moonshine War

Dual Meaders, Doc Taulbee, and their gang of city slickers set out to steal thousands of dollars worth of homemade Kentucky Whiskey from Son Martin, a hell-raising country boy, during the midst of Prohibition.

Killshot

Ironworker Wayne Colson and his spirited wife Carmen are witnesses to a shakedown scam - witnesses who must be eliminated. Enter Armand Degas, aka Blackbird, the brains of the operation, and his partner Richie Nix, an ex-con whose highest goal is to rob a bank in every state. A lively chase ensues when the Colsons enter the Federal Witness Security Program with two bumbling but determined killers on their trail.

Hombre

Set in Arizona mining country, Hombre is the tale of a white man raised by Indians, who must come to the aid of people who hate him when their stagecoach is attacked by outlaws. As thrilling as his contemporary novels of crime, double-cross, and murder in Detroit and Miami, Hombre is Elmore Leonard at his riveting best - no less than one would expect from the creator of US Marshal Raylan Givens (Justified).

Gold Coast

When he kicked off, Florida mob boss Frank DiCilia left his gorgeous widow, Karen, everything, but with strings attached. She loses the millions, the cars, the palatial Gold Coast mansion if she ever gets involved with another man. And there's a crazy cowboy-wannabe thug named Roland who's acting as Frank's eyes beyond the grave, making sure Karen doesn't dally. But now Cal Maguire's come into the picture. A sexy, street-smart Detroit ex-con, Cal's got a line and a scam for every occasion.

The Hot Kid

Carl Webster, the hot kid of the marshals service, is polite, respects his elders, and can shoot a man driving away in an Essex at 400 yards. Carl works out of the Tulsa, Oklahoma, federal courthouse during the 1930s, the period of America's most notorious bank robbers: Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson...those guys.

The Big Bounce

Jack Ryan always wanted to play pro ball. But he couldn't hit a curveball, so he turned his attention to less legal pursuits. A tough guy who likes walking the razor's edge, he's just met his match, and more, in Nancy. She's a rich man's plaything, seriously into thrills and risk, and together she and Jack are pure heat ready to explode. But when simple housebreaking and burglary give way to the deadly pursuit of a really big score, the stakes suddenly skyrocket.

Split Images

Quintessential Elmore Leonard, Split Images stars Palm Beach playboy Robbie Daniels. He's the kind of guy who gets away with everything - even murder - until a vacationing Motown cop, Bryan Hurd, starts asking questions. When this millionaire reptile reveals the psychopath beneath his slippery skin, Hurd finds out this is one helluva way for an out-of-town lawman to spend his vacation.

Road Dogs

Jack Foley is serving a 30-year sentence in a Miami penitentiary, but he's made an unlikely friend on the inside who just might be able to do something about that. Fellow inmate Cundo Rey, an extremely wealthy Cuban criminal, arranges for Foley's sentence to be reduced from 30 years to three months, and when Jack is released just two weeks ahead of Cundo, he agrees to wait for him in Venice Beach, California.

The Hunted

Al Rosen was doing just fine, hiding out in Israel - until he decided to play Good Samaritan and rescue some elderly tourists from a hotel fire. Now his picture's been carried in the stateside press, and the guys he's been hiding from know exactly where he is. And they're coming to get him - crooked lawyers, men with guns and money, and assorted members of the Detroit mob who are harboring a serious grudge. Playtime in paradise is officially over; Rosen's a million miles from home with a bull's eye on his back.

Publisher's Summary

The smallest of small-time criminals, Ernest Stickley Jr. figures his luck's about to change when Detroit used-car salesman Frank Ryan catches him trying to boost a ride from Ryan's lot. Frank's got some surefire schemes for getting rich quick - all of them involving guns - and all Stickley has to do is follow "Ryan's Rules" to share the wealth. But sometimes rules need to be bent, maybe even broken, if one is to succeed in the world of crime, especially if the "brains" of the operation knows less than nothing.

I love Elmore Leonard, and his books are almost more fun to listen to than to read, especially when the narration is as superb as Frank Muller's. These are not sophisticated, serpentine whodunits. They are really more character driven than plot oriented. But Leonard has such an engaging and economical way of characterization that you feel these people really exist -- a feeling enhanced by a narrator who makes each character come alive.

Two lowlifes realize they can make a comfortable living doing low-level armed robberies of grocery and liquor stores. They get an apartment in a swingers apartment complex and throw parties with lots of booze, sex and Mantovani records. Then they get bored and try for one big score that will set them for a year. The book was written in 1976, and the white male main characters are products of their time: sexist and racist. Leonard himself seems respectful of the black characters, even if the white characters have to remind themselves not to use the N-word in their company. But he treats the female characters as less significant in every way. That said, the plot is good and dialogue excellent. Bechdel test: fail.

"After the first few weeks he began to take it in stride. They were pros, that's why it was easy." - Elmore Leonard, Swag

I've read/listened to/watched several of Leonard's 90s crime novels (Get Shorty, Out of Sight, etc) but recently I was given Elmore Leonard's 'Four Novels of the 1970s' (Library of America) for my birthday and decided to start with 'Swag'. It was great, gritty Detroit crime fiction. So, in honor of this novel, here are ten rules for Detroit hardboiled fiction:

1. There needs to be a list of rules.2. There has to be multiple women.3. There has to be some racial tension.4. The book can't be longer than 250 pages5. Dialogue must be both funny and sharp.6. There needs to be several twists.7. Drugs and alcohol must be consumed or discussed.8. There has to be several exit ramps that are missed.9. Cars have to play a role, even if minor.10. All rules must eventually be broken.

Simple story, colorfully told about characters you don't necessarily love or hate, but you like them all enough that you want to know where to send their Birthday Cards, whether it's prison or some remote town in Mexico.

The two primary characters are small time robbers (grocery stores, liquor stores, bars) who ride out their luck until they fall in with some serious guys. They were not particularly appealing personalities to me. I appreciate that they did not intend to hurt anyone, but they are so careless and thoughtless that the inevitable happens.

The women are not as one-dimensional as some reviewers believe - there are a few women who really move the story forward. The "career girls" by the pool were a 1970s reality - looking for a bit of fun until they had to settle down. Teachers, clerks, models and other career girls were the ones who could afford to live independently in a singles apartment complex. They were as superficial in their relationships as the guy next door, even if that guy was a petty criminal.

These two guys, however, are not suave and slickly charming; they are insecure, whiny and weak. No one in the book was interesting enough for me to care what happened to them. Many much better Elmore Leonard novels out there (Get Shorty and Pronto come to mind)

He should learn how people fom Detroit pronounce the street names. And he just sounds so sarcastic all the time. The characters are lousers enough, then his interpretations makes them worse.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

No

Any additional comments?

I tried and tried with this book. I kept thinking it would get better. But the characters and their attitudes and activities are repulsive in a way. Boring, for certain. Couldn't finish it. A waste of money and time. I listened to one Leonard book and enjoyed it. Then a second which was just ok. But this one, yuk. I'm from Detroit, so the narrator's mispronunciations of the streets and areas was annoying. Would it be so hard to get it authentic?

Muller is simply superb. He always sounds like himself, but he has a great range of inflections so you recognize different characters. Plus, he always sounds good.

Any additional comments?

This is Elmore Leonard, so you know it's well done. Still, hardboiled as it often is, the setting is very much dated, and that starts to distract from the whole. It's worth remembering, too, that this is still fairly early Leonard, before the lighter-hearted work of Get Shorty. It's certainly worth reading this one, but temper your expectations. It's about a couple of pros setting out to commit crimes as pros, and that feels more or less like the challenge Leonard set out for himself as he wrote it: understated professional writing.